FOR SALE: White Hall Plantation C.1849

Welcome back to Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin here at Our Restoration Nation. Today we're in Louisiana. Welcome to Whitehall Plantation here in Simsport, Louisiana. This beautiful Greek Revival home is only an hour outside of Natchez, Mississippi, but it is worlds apart architecturally from what we've been seeing there with the Greek Revival style. And this gives us the opportunity to walk you and show you how interpretations of those classical styles varied radically in different geographic areas. So today we're going to take a look at the vernacular Louisiana style of this glorious Greek Revival style of architecture starting right here on the front veranda of Whitehall Plantation. This beautiful home was built in 1849 by Samuel Norwood by the architect Henry Howard. It sold in 1852 to Benton Barton Sims, who founded Simsport about three minutes up the road that direction. His family of eight moved into this home and this was a working plantation. They grew cotton, corn, peas, sweet potatoes, a variety of agricultural products were produced here on site. We know that Mr. Sims had 84 enslaved workers that were housed in 15 homes here on the property. None of the original dependencies exist on this property and you're about to see why. We often get comments when we show these antebellum period homes that the slave quarters were torn down out of some sense of shame or embarrassment. That's really not the case at all. You have to remember with these incredible structures that after the Civil War, we went through the period of Reconstruction where the economic situation in the South was really decimated and these once wealthy homeowners were reduced to poverty status. And you can see here in this picture of Whitehall from 1977, the condition that most of these grand homes ended up in. Hundreds of them were lost after the Reconstruction period. We had the Reconstruction period, then we had the boll weevil in the cotton which destroyed the agricultural crop down here, and then we had the Great Depression. So most of these grand homes and their dependencies suffered massive economic and structural setback during that time. But thanks to rehabilitation and restoration efforts like those undertaken by the current owner, Whitehall and many of these beautiful Greek Revival architectural pieces still stand today. Let's talk about what sets Whitehall apart from the homes that we're used to seeing in Natchez. Whitehall, unlike those that we've looked at before, incorporates a myriad of different design elements from the orders of architecture. Typically when we've looked at these beautiful homes, we either have Ionic, Doric, or Corinthian styling throughout the property. They stick with one order of architecture, but this one is a real mixed match of many of those different orders. On the front, we have what are octagonal, Doric-like columns. The closest thing we can associate this with is the Doric order, though not purely Doric. We have a four-light bay across the front that has these incredible six over nine box head windows with their original wavy glass. The scale of these homes to me is just unbelievable. We do not build at this monumental proportion anymore, and you can see how massive and grand it is with me standing next to the entryway here at Whitehall. And you can see the entablature and architrave around the front show us classic Greek key style detailing. The glass on our two side lights is a true frosted glass. We'll get a closer look at that when we look out the bay window in the front parlor. Let's go inside. Now you've seen the condition that Whitehall was in in 1977, so it's hard to imagine this masterpiece of a home in that condition. The current owners have done an absolutely spectacular job with the restoration of this incredible property. I want you to take a look around and see the mixture of styles that we see in this house. The entablatures and architraves are separated by a dental mold. You see it throughout the home. You see so much beautiful detail work in the cornicing, and typically in these homes when we see cornicing like that it's done from plaster, but this is all carved from cypress with the exception of course of the beautiful plaster medallion from which the light fixture in the entryway hangs. Before we leave the entryway, I have to show you the scale of this handrail. From a distance it looks like it's a regular proportion, but when I place my hand on it I can't really put my hand all the way around the handrail. It's absolutely enormous and so beautiful. Now in this space we can really see the differentiation between what we're accustomed to seeing in a Greek revival in the Natchez, Mississippi area or really anywhere in the Mississippi Delta. What we're accustomed to there is a center hall single or two-pile design, right, where we have a front room, with a center hall. This is a side hall design and we see this much more commonly here in Louisiana. So we have our main entry, a side hall with additional exits out onto the veranda, our stairway, and then off to our left as you enter the house are the main rooms of the house. This is a two-pile design originally, but wait until you see this front parlor. Come with me. Well here we are in an absolutely grand, glorious front parlor. This parlor extends the entire length of that front gallery. Those four walkout box head windows that we saw from the front are all in this singular space. And again we have glorious symmetry, referencing back to those orders of architecture. We're gonna have a whole lesson on the order someday so that you know what I'm talking about when I mention that. But this is where we see kind of the hodgepodge of design come in, like I talked about on the front porch. On the front porch we have the Doric columns. So you would expect to see Doric columns represented throughout the house. But no, here on our fireplaces we have Ionic columns. All right, well that's one change. Typically would not be the case, but one we can make an exception for. But then when we get to this beautiful arched opening, we have Corinthian columns with a Corinthian detail at the top of the pediment. So we have all of the orders of architecture represented in this one space. Some other things you have to take note of in this room of course again are the glorious cypress moldings around the perimeter of the room. You have stunning original curtain tiebacks and the putti that are represented at top of every window. And then at this far end of the gallery you have a pentagonal bay. That pentagonal bay is a one-story pentagonal bay that projects out from this front formal parlor and is inset with that glorious frosted glass. And it looks out onto the incredible landscaped grounds. Okay, we're doing this ridiculous shot because I made Kevin back all the way across the room so you could see the scale of these doorways. We have a 10-foot door, a 12-foot molding, and a 15-foot ceiling above me. Like I told you, the scale of this house is unbelievable. Let's take a look at the dining room. Here we are in the dining room. When I tell you that this house has every bell and or whistle that was available at the time, it has every bell and or whistle that was available at the time. You saw the incredible front parlor with the archway, the Corinthian columns archway. And in this room we have pocket doors which open up this space to one monumental space or it can be closed off to serve as a dining room and a parlor. We have original mantelpieces in here in the Greek key design that have been painted with a faux marb technique and again more spectacular cypress carving in our cornices around the room. And here we are in the parlor that's off of the dining room. Now the reason that pocket doors were so in vogue and were so useful were because they could create two separate spaces and change into a single space. So if the Sims were hosting a large function, a lot of the neighbors were coming to a large dinner, all of these spaces could be opened up for dining, for dancing, and then of course we have airflow. Since this is not a central hall design, you need all of these spaces to be able to open to pull that draft from that side hall into this space and out through those windows that are on the side of the house. So again everything is working together to keep circulation and comfort in mind for these homes that are in Louisiana. It was hot, it was humid, it was uncomfortable in the summer. So everything has been done to keep the interior of the home as comfortable as possible and now it serves to make a beautiful grand space. Look at this. Look at this. I would buy this house for this. There are two of them, one on either side. Sliding pocket French doors that are 10 feet in height. Walking into the way that a kitchen should be done in a historic property. I want you to look around this kitchen and see if you own a historic home, this is how you do your kitchen. We have an incredible built-in that's been used to house all of the china and dishware. We have a historic countertop that's been used for the sink and the bakery space. Everything in this space is freestanding. This is not a fitted kitchen. It feels like it fits with the house. Of course it's not original to the house, but it feels like it goes. It doesn't feel out of time. It doesn't feel out of place. It is a beautiful use of this space in a modern functioning way that doesn't break the mold. It doesn't disrupt the flow and format of this house. Now let's take a look at this back room that is actually a much earlier structure, we think. This we know was another home entirely. A much earlier structure built, I'm going to guess from the details, around the 1812 period. Possibly even earlier and was added on to the back of the main build of Whitehall Plantation. Behind me you will see this glorious curving open staircase. This is very much in the federal form. If you look at the form of the curve, the inset, it's very federal in feel. So I would imagine this original part of the home was built somewhere 1795 to 1810 and then added on to Whitehall as an additional space. But this would have served as the servant stairs. It enters all the way up to the bedroom area of Whitehall, which is where we're going to go next. Here we are in the upstairs hallway. Now I want to show you on the walls of this second floor, and at one point we understand that all of the interior walls were like this. This is all longleaf yellow pine sheathing. All of the walls are flush mounted longleaf yellow pine. Of course they've been painted, which is fine. It's pine. All of the woodwork in this house would have been painted originally. At no point would any of this woodwork been left bare. So nobody, nobody panic. But up here, all of the walls are this glorious longleaf yellow pine. And then again, we have the beautiful cypress carved medallions and details in the corners work and another beautiful plaster medallion. The finishes up here are very fine for private space. We've talked before, private spaces were usually much less formal, but the finishes up here are a little more elegant than we see in some of the secondary spaces in these historic homes. On the second floor, of course, we have a gallery, a second floor gallery, and up here we have five box head walkout windows that we can open up and enjoy the evening breezes or walk out onto the veranda and see the beautiful landscaped grounds. It's fun to note this incredible home has been moved three times. The path of the river has changed over the lifetime of this home so often that it has been lifted and backed up three times. Now, luckily, thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers and modern engineering, we have a safe, secure levee out front, so it shouldn't have to be moved again. This beautiful home is being sold furnished. He doesn't even want to take the canned goods out of the pantry. So everything that you see in the video is going to come along with the purchase of this beautiful home and 14 acres. So as we take a look at these bedrooms, take a look around and see if there's anything here that catches your eye. During the Civil War, Whitehall was commandeered by the Union troops, and this home was occupied by General Nathan P. Banks. And it was from here that he launched the Battle of Port Hudson. So this home is full of historic importance. Now, we're going to go outside and take a look at this little balcony that's off of this bedroom. Like many wealthy landowners after the Civil War, Mr. Sims was in extreme economic distress. He lost most of his fortune as well as his ability to vote, like many landowners did during that time. So by 1868, Whitehall and her surrounding acreage were back in the hands of the bank. Just a couple years later, Samuel Norwood, from whom Mr. Sims bought the property in the first place, once again owned Whitehall. After that, as you can see from the photos, she went into many, many, many years of neglect and decline. But today, she is a beautiful example of Greek Revival Southern architecture with Italianate details, and she's looking for her next caretaker. Do you think you might be the next steward of this beautiful property and the 14 acres on which it sits, along with its multitude of guest cottages and swimming pool? Well, if so, the link to the Zillow description is in our description below, as well as all of the Realtor's contact information. Remember, we're not Realtors. We're not here to sell you the house and really teach you its history and show you its details. We'll leave all of the real estate handlings up to the Realtor. So reach out to him if you think Whitehall might be the dream property for you. We appreciate you joining us here on Preservation Travels with Lane and Kevin. If you want to watch us do our own preservation work, you can follow our series, Restoring Our Victorian. We have two properties that we're working on right now, and you can see us getting our hands dirty there. Until next time, give us a thumbs up, subscribe to our channel, and we'll see you soon.